The volume, sound duration and richness of tone needed to create beautiful music with today's acoustic stringed instruments is difficult, at best, to achieve. The problem stems in large part from the fact that few adjustments can be made to change the sound characteristics of these instruments once they have been manufactured. An added handicap for small guitars, mandolins and acoustic-electric guitars is the small size of their sound chambers which tends to hinder the production of musical notes of low frequency.
Traditionally, success in making good sounding acoustic guitars, acoustic-electric guitars, mandolins, banjos and drums was largely determined by the quality of the materials used in construction, the quality of skilled craftsmanship in the manufacturing process, and a degree of good fortune as the various parts were brought together and the instrument was tested, primarily after completion. The intricacies of this approach insured that good sounding acoustic instruments made following its techniques would be expensive.
Further, tuning guitars and mandolins for optimum performance (defined herein as a state in which they exhibit a noticeable maximum available volume with a noticeably high quality of sound) was left up to the manufacturer. Banjos and drums, while tuneable for optimum performance to a degree, required the expenditure of considerable effort on the part of experienced players.
Players have had so little control over the characteristic sound or timbre (hereinafter “timbre”) of their acoustic stringed instruments that musicians often resorted to using several instruments to meet their needs for different sounds.
Not until recently has this situation improved significantly and only with respect to round-hole acoustic musical instruments. As described by Geiger in U.S. Pat. No. 6,861,581, a resonating and amplifying device, capable of improving the sound quality and volume of a conventional guitar, includes a cross-shaped resonator which when mounted within the guitar's sound chamber is cantilevered beneath its sound hole, partially covering it. Holding the device in position is a set of prongs formed in an extended arm of the resonator. In use, opposing upper and under prongs clip the device to the edge of the sound hole which then forms a wedge between them, Unfortunately, the geometry of this device is such that it cannot be readily attached to the edge of elongated sound openings such as are found in F-hole guitars, F-hole mandolins, and the like. Moreover, in placing the resonator on a guitar, one risks harming its body unless the prongs are handled gently.